with its <<<DefaultArtifact>>> implementation ({{{./xref/org/apache/maven/artifact/DefaultArtifact.html}source}}).

 The jar file is executable and provides a little tool to display how Maven parses and compares versions:

+----+
$ java -jar maven-artifact-*.jar 3.2.4-alpha-1 3.2.4-SNAPSHOT 3.2.4.0
Display parameters as parsed by Maven (in canonical form) and comparison result:
1. 3.2.4-alpha-1 == 3.2.4.alpha.1

        return items.hashCode();
    }

    // CHECKSTYLE_OFF: LineLength

    /**
     * Main to test version parsing and comparison.
     * <p>
     * To check how "1.2.7" compares to "1.2-SNAPSHOT", for example, you can issue
     * <pre>java -jar ${maven.repo.local}/org/apache/maven/maven-artifact/${maven.version}/maven-artifact-${maven.version}.jar "1.2.7" "1.2-SNAPSHOT"</pre>

 * under the License.
 */
package org.apache.maven.artifact.versioning;

/**
 * Describes an artifact version in terms of its components, converts it to/from a string and
 * compares two versions.
 *
 */
public interface ArtifactVersion extends Comparable<ArtifactVersion> {
    int getMajorVersion();

    int getMinorVersion();

    int getIncrementalVersion();

                    "must be one of " + validVersions + " but is '" + string + "'.",
                    tracker);
        }

        return false;
    }

    /**
     * Compares two model versions.
     *
     * @param first the first version.
     * @param second the second version.